An antidepressant drug appears to deter the formation of amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published today (May 14) in Science Translational Medicine. A team led by Yvette Sheline of the University of Pennsylvania studied the effects of citalopram, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), on mice and a small group of people.Amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles can be found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, but it’s not clear if the plaques are precursors to neurodegenerative problems or an effect of them. Citalopram, which is marketed as Celexa and Cipramil, is typically used to treat...

Fort Hood shooter was taking "prescription drugs for depression and anxiety". SSRIs? "Lopez was undergoing a variety of treatments for conditions including depression, anxiety and sleep disturbances, McHugh said. He was prescribed drugs that included Ambien, a sleep aid. Lopez was fully examined last month by a psychiatrist. There was no record of any sign he was likely to commit violence against himself or others, according to McHugh. "So the plan (going) forward was just to continue to monitor and treat him as deemed appropriate," he said." They say that he was "prescribed drugs" but only named one, Ambien, which...

There is good news today for those who suffer from depression: The largest study ever done on treating depression has found that patients who didn't get well with the first medicine they tried had a good chance of succeeding the second time around. The study found little difference among the five drugs tested: Celexa, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Effexor and Buspar -- and wasn't designed to compare them. All proved similarly effective and relatively safe. The clear message, doctors said, was that antidepressants should be given a 6-to-12-week chance to work and that if one doesn't help, another should be tried."It's important...

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandated a new warning label be added to antidepressants more than a year ago, cautioning physicians to pay close attention to patients taking the drugs for signs of suicidal behavior. Now the agency issued its second (much stronger) warning, urging the monitoring of adults who use antidepressants for signs of suicidal thoughts and deepening depression.FDA's New AdvisoryThe new warning, which is applicable to children and adults, was in the wake of recent studies that linked suicidal behavior in adults to their use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the most commonly prescribed class of...

The issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry that hit the desks of its 37,000 readers this month reported test results for the antidepressant drug Celexa, indicating it could help children and teenagers. Before publication, the article received the kind of scrutiny common among medical journals. The study's authors had been asked to divulge their financial ties, if any, to the drug's marketer, Forest Laboratories Inc., which sponsored the clinical trial. And the report was sent to reviewers who examined the trial methodology and checked to make sure that the article reflected other relevant research about the use of antidepressants...

Looking back, Mark and Cheryl Miller would have done a lot of things differently with their 13-year-old son, Matt. They probably would never have left Lenexa, Kan. They would have sent him to a different school, and they certainly would have chosen a different therapist. But most of all, they wouldn't have given him Zoloft. ''It's not a pleasant thing living with the thought that you had a hand in your son's death,'' Mark Miller told me recently. ''Making him take those pills was done out of love for Matt, but it was still the wrong thing to do.'' We...

Drugs Linked to More Suicides Among Children, Unpublished Analysis Says Six months after the Food and Drug Administration withheld an internal finding that antidepressant medications were associated with an increased risk of suicide among children, a second staff analysis has arrived at the same conclusion. The agency has not publicly disclosed either report, despite growing pressure from critics and Congress. Agency officials say they do not plan to discuss the data until a scheduled meeting in September, which would come nine months after British authorities warned physicians not to prescribe Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa and similar drugs to depressed children, and...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Patients on some popular antidepressants should be closely monitored for warning signs of suicide, the government warned Monday in asking the makers of 10 drugs to add the caution to their labels. Although the Food and Drug Administration's investigation into the possible suicide connection initially focused on children given the drugs, its warning is aimed at both adult and pediatric use of the pills to alleviate depression. It isn't clear yet that the drugs actually do lead to suicide, the FDA stressed. After all, depression itself can lead to suicide. But until that is settled, advisers to...

With VERY few exceptions (thanks to the people that were human and to people that wrote me privately) you people are a bunch of fundamentalist zealots. You aren't conservatives...you're fascists. You make me embarrassed to be a Republican.